Technology: April 2008 Archives

...but it's good that this appears to be an internal correction rather than an indication of tech recession:

Storage vendor EMC Corp today reported a 14 per cent first quarter profit drop and blamed acquisition-related expenses for the fall. The Massachusetts-based firm said it coughed a $79.2m non-cash charge for in-process research and development that came from company buy-outs during the quarter.

One of the first things to go when budgets get slashed are big-iron purchases and training. Hopefully HDS will stay strong.

El Reg has it wrong, smut is still the worry:

A survey of 300 security pros by security firm Webroot found that workers frequently visit travel, webmail, and social networking websites while attempts to surf smut or gambling sites are less common. Users are effectively policing themselves, the survey revealed.

Travel, webmail, and social networking websites are more a threat to productivity than smut, but smut will get the workplace in much deeper shite. If an employee is tweeting all day or playing on LiveJournal, it's not likely that what's on their screen would be considered as creating a hostile work environment for a colleague. Watching porn, however, opens up that harassment door in a huge way. The fear is not about productivity as much as litigation.

Frankly, I can live without voice communication for 6-7 hours across the Atlantic. What I'd want is e-mail/toobz access:

That Air France in-flight calling trial is now well underway, and it looks like there's still some kinks left to iron out. The New York Times hitched a ride on a recent flight featuring tests of the system, and found that things weren't quite working up to snuff: voice quality was said to be like "talking to a small robot," only six passengers could get a signal at a time, Blackberry email didn't work, and calls placed from the ground to cell phones in the air went straight to voicemail. That's a pretty long list for a system that's been talked about for a couple years now -- let's hope OnAir manages to clear up some of these glitches before angry passengers revolt over not only having to listen to other people's conversations, but also their screaming over bad connections.

I will say this, though, we're past the notion that cell phones will take down the plane. That was always a stupid thing.

As I mentioned a while back, I was sorely tempted to buy a MacBook Air. The desire to have a twist-screen for use on planes won out, but wow, it's a very neat computer. Here's the summary from El Reg:

The Air is a 'love it or loathe it' machine, but don't let the naysayers put you off if it offers the form factor you prefer. Of course it's not going to be the laptop to suit everyone - you can buy cheaper or more capable Macs and PCs - so it's not a must have for the price-conscious buyer or the power-hungry. It's pricey, but with the exception of the tiny, basic Eee, the Air's no more expensive than other slim'n'light laptops.

I agree with the reviewer that the non-removable battery isn't a deal-breaker, and even the minimal port count is something I could survive. I could see using an Air as a work-in-coffee-shops system, but I still like working in Ubuntu as my primary OS.

Otherwise they'd know that flash drives are a wicked security risk:

Tut, tut, says SanDisk. Because end-user respondents also said that data they were most likely to copy onto a memory stick includes customer records (25 per cent), financial information (17 per cent), business plans (15 per cent), employee records (13 per cent), marketing plans (13 per cent), intellectual property (six per cent) and source code (six per cent).

(We'll suppose the remaining 11 per cent consists of goatse and humorous photos of cats, which to be fair can be equally nefarious when in the wrong hands.)

This security lapse might be okay if the survey didn't indicate approximately one in ten end-users reported finding a flash drive in a public place. When asked to pick the three most likely actions they would take if they found a memory stick in public, 55 per cent said they would view the data.

Of course people will check out what's on a memory stick, they're hoping it's amateur porn.

The one good thing about most corporate data is that the average person doesn't care much about spreadsheets and access databases. I'd be more likely to wipe off the stick and use it for myself.

I'd probably hang on to the amateur porn, though.